A few months ago, the Materials Engineering and Technology group began investigating the use of old fashion weld metal for advanced weld metal properties. The idea being that maybe a little dirt will do us good. If we can pick the correct weld metal, we may be able to use low cost filler metals to produce high performance, high productivity weld metal properties. The first phase of this program is using SMAW filler metals like 7018 to produce a butter layer for autogeneous laser (LBW) and friction stir welding (FSW). The stick welded butter layers, provide unique oxide types and size distributions that at present appear to have advantageous results for toughness and other critical mechanical properties. The next phase of this program will investigate the development of new consumables that could be used during welding rather than being applied during a butter pass.